The Enormous Beet (stageplay)

At my daughter's school, we put on an English Hour every 6 weeks or so.  (The second one is coming up, but the first was awesome!)  Each class prepares something to present to the entire student body. Maxine will be the mother bear in the 4th and 5th grade presentation of Goldielocks (not Brownielocks, because that sounds weird) and the Three Bears. The higher the grade, the more they contribute to the preparation.  The 8th and 9th graders will be performing "One Day More" from Les Miserables, as well as talking about the characters and story of the musical.  The first graders are "Singing in the Rain" , and the 6th and 7th graders will be doing the bits between acts.

The 2nd and 3rd grade class chose another Korean folk tale, "The Enormous Radish".  Radishes aren't that tasty, nor are they funny, so I made a Snap Judgment, and changed it to a story with a beet.

So if you have difficulty imagining a bunch of Korean kids mangling English in a cute way, and serving ham in a manner that puts lunch ladies everywhere to shame, come visit us in Busan at Apple Tree Waldorf School on May 22nd, 10:10 a.m.  Don't be late, or you might not get a seat!

The Enormous Beet 

Narrator: Once upon a time there was a farmer. He planted beets.

Farmer: I planted beets. Beets are my favorite!

N: When the beets were ready to harvest, the farmer chose the biggest one.

Farmer: The farmer pulled the beet,

but it didn't come out!

N: So the farmer called for help.

Farmer: Hey wife! Come help me pull this beet!

Wife: Beets are my favorite! [farmer pulls beet, wife pulls farmer]

F,W: So the wife pulled the farmer

and the farmer pulled the beet,

but it didn't come out!

N: So the wife called for help.

Wife: Hey son! Come help us pull this beet!

Son: Beets are my favorite! [son pulls wife, wife pulls farmer, farmer pulls beet]

F,W,S: So the son pulled the wife,

and the wife pulled the farmer,

and the farmer pulled the beet,

but it didn't come out!

N: So the son called for help.

Son: Hey dog! Come help us pull this beet!

Dog: Beets are my favorite! [dog pulls son, son pulls wife, etc.]

F,W,S,D: So the dog pulled the son,

and the son pulled the wife,

and the wife pulled the farmer,

and the farmer pulled the beet,

but it didn't come out!

N: So the dog called for help.

Dog: Hey cat! Come help us pull this beet!

Cat: Beets are my favorite! [cat pulls dog, etc.]

F,W,S,D,C: So the cat pulled the dog,

and the dog pulled the son,

and the son pulled the wife,

and the wife pulled the farmer,

and the farmer pulled the beet,

but it didn't come out!

N: So the cat called for help.

Cat: Hey mouse! Come help us pull this beet!

Mouse: Beets are my favorite! [mouse pulls cat, etc.]

W,F,S,D,C,M: So the mouse pulled the cat,

and the cat pulled the dog,

and the dog pulled the son,

and the son pulled the wife,

and the wife pulled the farmer,

and the farmer pulled the beet,

but it didn't come out!

N: Until...

Mouse: [shouts] Mouse power! [superhero pose, big grab and pull on cat]

[beet comes out, all fall down]

N: Look what happened!

All: The beet came out!

Mouse: This beet is very, very large!

Cat: This beet is huge!

Dog: This beet is gigantic!

Son: This beet is the biggest ever!

Wife: This beet is humongous!

Farmer: This beet is enormous!

N: That night for dinner, they all sat down to eat the enormous beet. Because

All: Beets are our favorite!

N: The End!

Sack Family Update

Spring has pretty much sprung, and the cherry blossoms are now mostly gone.  I did take a few photos, but this one of Maxine is the only one worth including.

"Don't take the picture while my mouth is open."
"Not possible."

Maxine was a bit upset that we didn't take a family picture with these beautiful blossoms in the background.  For her they still happen only once a year.  For me they happen every year.  Funny how the same interval can feel so different.

Maxine is in fourth grade now.  Which, by the way, just doesn't seem possible to me.  She sometimes has some big assignments to do.  Last weekend her teacher had the students figure out how much money they had spent, then count out one grain of rice for each won (the Korean currency, about the same as a penny) and bring it to class.

1,472, 1473, 1,744...  What?  DON'T TALK TO ME!
WHERE WAS I?!?!?!

Horyon suggested that I could do that while she took care of Quinten.  I told her that I would figure out the best way to cheat, so let's think carefully about who is doing the helping on this one.  She spent almost 11,000 won that week, which was an exceptionally high amount.  I still need to ask her how the class went, because I didn't hear back about it.

As much as I like Maxine's school, they occasionally do things like this which make me cringe just a little.  Horyon explained that this was to help them understand the value of the money they spend.  I get that.  Not sure how this is better than just keeping track of what they spend and on what, but that's okay.  She also said that it is to help build number awareness.  I think that the two of them spent a total of three hours on this project.  To me, the time would have been better spent working on estimation, weighing, and figuring out real world ways to get around measuring rice grain by grain.

In the mean time, Quinten acquired three plastic discs (he calls them medals) that are accessories for a freakishly expensive Japanese toy that you wear on your wrist like a watch.  When you insert a disc, it makes a different noise.  The discs cost 1,000 won (a dollar) apiece, and the watch thing costs 60,000 won (conversion left to the reader as a math exercise).  Fortunately, Quinten has not asked for the watch thing.  He bought one disc, and the store keeper gave him two more.  A few days later he invented The Medal Game:  you flick your disc into your opponents disc.  If you knock it off, you get a point.  If they both fall off, it's a draw.  If they both stay on, your opponent gets to flick their disc into yours.  It is surprisingly similar to Carrom, which I first saw in Nepal.

Quinten consistently beat Horyon, but I totally beat him on this one.

 Speaking of Quinten obsessions, have I mentioned that we have a stag beetle?  It is Quinten's pet.  It will teach him a valuable lesson about death some day, just like the two beetles before it did.  But first it will scurry around, eat bug jelly, and be gross for a while.  I believe it's name is "Stag", in the same way that Maxine's turtle is called, "Turtle."  We are just not that good at naming pets in our family.

As if my existence weren't disturbing enough, I'm going to walk on my food.  Yum.

So the last few weeks have been rough.  Maxine and Quinten each spent time in the hospital (read about it here), and Horyon and I have both been fighting off low-level colds.  Friday mornings are usually free for me, so I clean up the kitchen to get a running start on the weekend.  This week I had an event at Maxine's school, so I couldn't catch up on my sleep or clean up.  Horyon was at school until after nine, so I decided that we would not eat at home.  Maxine and I discussed our options, and ended up at Pizza Mall in front of Kyungsung University.  Pizza Mall is a buffet featuring eight kinds of pizza, spaghetti, clams, fried rice, cream of mushroom soup, a decent salad bar, and a dessert bar with ice cream.  The kids were about $5 and $7, and I was $13, making for a very affordable dinner.  Even though it was Friday night at 6:30, we only had to wait about 5 minutes to be seated.

Pizza?  What pizza?  All gone already!

We enjoyed our dinner, then walked home.  On the way we had a small adventure, stopping to take pictures on a rock by the huge intersection in our neighborhood.  We tried for one of those jumping pictures, but my phone camera wasn't up to the low light levels.

A rare moment of cooperation.

Later we got off of the main street, away from the traffic.  We stopped at my favorite bakery, and Quinten was thrilled to find a store that sells skeletons.  Well, one skeleton, anyway.  He spotted it from the street and dragged us in, demanding to have his picture taken with it.

BFFs, no fibula!

I considered buying it, but it costs about $2,000.  That seems kind of steep to me, especially since it has never been inside someone's body (I asked.  I had to!)  Quinten will have to settle for his book about skeletons.

So if any of you have any skeletons in your closet that you are willing to share, let me know.

Liver Quest (a revised Korean folk tale)

Once upon a time there was a Queen who lived under the sea.  She was very powerful, but her reach extended only as far as the waves.  Her fleetest and most trusted servant was Turtle.  In those days Turtle was very different from today:  she had four long, strong legs that she used to kick through the water and run on land.  Her body was soft and vulnerable, but she could outrun or swim any animal who tried to catch her.

One day Turtle brought some bad news to the Queen.  "Your Majesty!  Some fish are conspiring to overthrow your government!"

"Lead me to them!" ordered the Queen, and Turtle did so.

Turtle pointed out the guilty fish to the Queen, and she quickly ate them, thus ending the rebellion.  Unfortunately for her, the guilty fish caused even more trouble after their executions than they had caused before.

The Queen became very sick.  Her doctors told her that she would be dead by the next sunrise, and could only be healed by a potion brewed at midnight from the liver of a rabbit..  The Queen summoned her loyal servant Turtle, and told him that she needed a rabbit liver by sunset, or she would die.  Turtle swore to do her best, and quickly swam towards land.

Turtle knew that she would never find Rabbit's home, because in those days rabbit had short legs, and survived by her wits and by hiding well.  So Turtle ran quickly and quietly until she spotted Rabbit grazing in a thicket.  She cornered Rabbit, and told her, "I need your liver to save my Queen!  Give it to me, please, or she will die!"

Rabbit was a quick thinker then as she is today.  She replied, "I cannot give you my liver!  I keep it in a box in my home so that it does not get lost!"

This made sense to Turtle, as she knew how valuable a rabbit liver could be.  "Then let us go to your home, and you can give it to me!"

"Surely not!" protested Rabbit.  "If the other animals see us, they will follow us to my home and eat up my family!"

Turtle was at heart very kind and compassionate.  Though she needed Rabbit's liver, she did not want Rabbit's family to suffer.  "Then you go fetch your liver, and I will wait here for you!" suggested Turtle.

"Thank you!" said Rabbit.  "I should be back here by this time tomorrow."

Turtle was dismayed.  "That is too long!  My Queen will be dead by tomorrow!  What can I do?"

Clever Rabbit realized that not only was she going to keep her liver, but that she might gain something from Turtle's need.  "I've got an idea!  Why don't you lend me two of your long, strong legs?  Then I can get to my home and back in no time at all!"

Turtle was so relieved that she immediately agreed, and gave Rabbit her back legs.  Rabbit put them on, and bounded off, laughing as she went.

Turtle thought about this as she waited.  She came to the conclusion that Rabbit was not going to return, but by then Rabbit was out of sight.

Turtle didn't know what to do.  She stumbled her way up to the cliffs overlooking the sea, wanting one last glimpse of her home before leaping to her doom.  Her path was watered by tears for the Queen she loved, but could not save.

As Turtle stood at the brink, she was surprised to hear a voice behind her.

"What's the matter, dearie?"  She turned around and was surprised to see a wrinkled, old woman cooking soup in a cauldron over a fire, where previously there was nothing but grass.  The woman spoke again.  "I can help save your Queen, but it will cost you."

Turtle was by nature conservative and slow-thinking.  She would normally have nothing to do with witches and their magic, but this time was different. "Anything!" she said with no hesitation.  "Everything I have is yours!  Just save the life of my Queen!"

"This potion will cure your Queen when it is done, but it still needs one thing."

Turtle's heart sank.  "I know.  You need a rabbit liver."

"Mercy me no!" laughed the witch.  "It just needs more stirring!  Can you do that?"

"Of course!"  Turtle looked around.  "Where is the spoon?"

"There is no spoon.  You must use your leg," the old woman said with a sad smile.  "The power of the potion will come from you."

The potion appeared brown at first, then blue.  Then pink.  It was difficult for Turtle to look at, actually.  It was also bubbling and steaming, making noises that almost sounded like words.  The smell was less suggestive of something to be eaten than of something that did the eating.

It was late afternoon, and the sun was starting to go down.  Turtle sighed, and gingerly put her left front leg into the potion and began stirring.

It hurt.  A cold, deep burning.  After just a few minutes she pulled her aching leg out to find that it was only half as long as before.  "Keep stirring," encouraged the old woman.  Turtle used her other leg for a few minutes, then switched again.  When the witch finally told Turtle she could stop, both of her front legs were barely long enough to reach the potion.

The old woman filled a clay jug with the potion, put in a stopper and gave it to Turtle.  "A noble sacrifice is never in vain," the old woman told her.

Turtle looked at her short legs and vulnerable body, then down the long path back to the sea.  "This sacrifice may prove to be in vain," she sighed.  "Without my long legs, I will never get back to my Queen in time!"  She turned back towards the witch.  "What shall I...?"

The hilltop was empty.  The witch, the fire, and the cauldron were gone.  The only sign that they had ever been there was a wisp of smoke from the fire, twirling in the breeze.  Twirling in circles, actually.  Circles that moved faster and faster, until Turtle felt herself picked up off of the ground, and lifted out to sea.

When the wind slowed enough, Turtle fell gently into the waves from just above the surface.  She swam to the palace as quickly as she could, and into the Queen's chambers.  The Queen was weak, but able to drink the potion.

As the Queen recovered her strength, Turtle collapsed to the floor.  "Turtle!  You have saved me!  But what has happened to your legs?"

"It is nothing, your majesty!  I am only pleased that you are well."  Exhausted from her ordeal, Turtle fell into a deep sleep.

The Queen could not bear to see her trusted servant broken as she was.  She cast about for a reward, and spotted the clay jug, which still had a little of the potion in it.  The Queen ground it into powder, together with the remaining potion, a little sea water, and a few drops of her own blood.  They made a thick paste which the Queen applied to Turtle's back and chest as she slept.  She then took her to the surface to dry in the sun.  When Turtle awoke, she was so thankful to be alive and see her Queen that she decided to forget her long legs and be happy with her new body.

To this day Turtle still has short legs and a hard shell, and she needs to spend some time in the sun. Rabbit is still tricky, with long hind legs and a hidden home.  Of course, Rabbit and Turtle never got along well after that.  Eventually their feud came to a head in a foot race, but that is another story.

A Family Divided

In Korea staying in the hospital is not nearly as big a deal is it is in The States.  For starters, if you have insurance it is surprisingly cheap.  At less than $50 per day*, including meals, it's often used as a sort of quarantine.  They keep you hooked up to an i.v. so you don't dehydrate, take your temperature regularly, and the doctor comes to tell you how you are doing on a regular basis.  My kids have gone through some version of the flu, an H2-N something.  Contagious, messes with the digestion, but not too serious.  In an effort to avoid spreading this bug, they've both spent time in the hospital.

Last week Maxine stayed in the hospital for five days, and with Horyon's parents for one more.  Horyon stayed at the hospital with her, and I stayed home with Quinten.  We were hoping that Quinten wouldn't catch the flu.  It didn't work.

This week Quinten stayed in the hospital for five days, and will be coming home tomorrow.  Horyon stayed at the hospital with him, and I stayed home with Maxine.

During one of our rare moments together this week I said to Horyon, "Whose turn is it next week, you or me?"  She laughed, an even rarer gem these days.

"You can't get sick," she told me, the italics clear in her voice.

"Fine," I said.  "You go next."  Another laugh, but this one was tinged with exhaustion.  It is possible that staying at the hospital where you have easy access to an I.V. is the only thing that has kept her from getting sick.

We were very fortunate in one respect.  This week Horyon's school took their spring trip on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  She was originally to have gone with them to Yangsang, about an hour and a half from home via public transit.  She would have spent the days out there and come back to spend the nights with Quinten in the hospital if it necessary, but she got permission to skip the trip, so she spent those three days as well as the nights in the hospital with him instead.  I suspect that she found it very restful.

It has been interesting observing how my children behave when they have long stretches of sibling-free time.  Maxine has definitely adjusted to it better than Quinten did.  To her, he is still the interloper.  But Quinten was generally quieter without his sister.  He was more demanding of my time, of course, but playing with me was much less likely to lead to crying and fighting.

From him, at any rate.

During Quinten's week I helped him with a few projects, mostly encouraging him to keep making.  I am still sure that he will be the first kid on the block to have a 3D printer.  But in the mean time, he gets so frustrated when he can't get the picture in his mind to manifest in the real world the way he wants it.  The most valuable lesson I can teach him is patience, a lesson which is difficult to teach if you struggle with it yourself.  The sound of Quinten whining and crying wears down my patience like using a belt sander on a cookie when I am tired.  The best way for me to deal with it was to push bedtime earlier.  If we start to get ready for bed after he is tired, the whining is inevitable.  But if we can do snack, pajamas, and the brushing of the teeth while he still has enough energy, then he can get some bonus playing/making time, and still have time to read some books together before bed.

Maxine and I get along much more easily.  We can both spend time reading without getting uncomfortable, and tonight I made a wonderful discovery:  she has been learning the recorder since she started at Apple Tree School, and I have heard her play in groups and at home a few times.  I was moving some stuff around and found my recorders, a soprano (the one you are probably thinking about) and an alto (a few inches longer, lower, mellower tone).  I can't usually resist taking out the alto and playing a bit, so I did.  I let Maxine play the soprano.  She immediately started playing the Pachelbel Canon.  So I joined in playing one of the counterpoints.  Well, probably more than one, as I have never studied the piece.  We then moved on to a couple of Christmas carols, Amazing Grace, and one or two more.  She can hold on to the melody while I play a harmony!  We will definitely be making time to do this again.  She wants to surprise Horyon and Quinten with a duet, so I will try to get us some practice time before we are all together again.

I am so looking forward to being all together again.

I especially miss Horyon.  We talk on the phone from time to time, and even see each other a bit.  It's not as bad as last summer, and has been good in a strange way:  the last seven months have been relentlessly stressful, and we were both becoming more and more sensitive.  Every married couple has times in which they lash out at each other.  We know that for a short time we can let loose the dogs of war that have been chained up in our hearts, because the target is the only one who will take the full brunt of the attack and immediately forgive.  If not immediately at least by the next morning.

We can take it because we have bound ourselves together.  Every time we have ever kissed and made up we added a strand to the bond.  Every time we hashed out a disagreement, and came to share the same resolve it tightened and strengthened the bond.  Every tough decision we've made, every crisis we've weathered, every tear we've shed together has built up that connection a little more.

At Kwanganli Beach there is a display case with a sample of one of the cables holding up the Kwangan Bridge.  It is made up of hundreds of cables, each about the thickness of my pinky finger.  Any one of those cables on its own would snap under the weight of the bridge.  A bundle of ten or twenty would do little better.  But hundreds are practically unbreakable.  Even if there is a flaw in one cable, and it snaps, the load is immediately taken up by all the cables around it.

With fifteen years of adding strands to our relationship, we can handle this.  God knows we could take more of it if we had to, but just between you and me, I seriously hope that this is not the warm up for a repeat of Job.  Because we do need to fix a few broken strands, and it would be nice to get back to adding new ones.

We will be a complete family again tomorrow.  I think our first plan is to sleep late Saturday morning.!  Wish us luck!

*I'm not absolutely sure of the price, as I don't handle the bills here, but I think this is the price for a double occupancy room.

Peace Corps 1: The Other Path not Taken

Applying for the Peace Corps was in itself a kind of trial.  A long application, hunting down documents and references, medical check up, background checks, essays, an interview.  My current job actually had a similar process, but at the time I was convinced that I was going through a kind of gauntlet to test my endurance, like a weed-out class: if you can't hack the application, you don't have the determination to be a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV).  Determination and patience, that is.  It was almost a year between when I applied and when I left.  It could have been sooner, if I had known then what I later found out.

My interviewer was a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) who projected the Peace Corps vibe from her frizzy hair and ethnic shawl to her tanned, Birkenstocked toes. At my interview I was asked what sort of position I would like, and I asked what she thought would be best?  She told me that more than half of PCV positions are in the education sector, so that was the best way to get in quickly.  She was correct, in a general sense:  For most people, with non-related degrees, education is the best avenue into the Peace Corps.  But for specialists it is different.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had no interest in doing engineering at this point.  I assumed that doing engineering would be like taking engineering classes, many of which I had not enjoyed.  One reason is that I am not a detail-oriented person, and engineering seemed to be very dependent on having every detail be absolutely correct.  The consequences for failing to do this could be catastrophic, and I couldn't imagine putting myself under that kind of pressure to do something I'm not really that good at.  So I didn't bring up engineering in the interview, and didn't even imagine trying for such a position.  I don't remember her bringing it up, either, but that could easily be my brain remembering myself in the best light.  I remember it as playing the percentages: 50% of postings are education, 5% are engineering.  Lower chance of getting one of those.

Once I was in country I met the group of PCVs doing engineering work: urban design, and drinking water supply systems.  The people doing these programs were in a program parallel to ours, occasionally in the same training facility, but mostly elsewhere.  When they found out that I had a degree in civil engineering they wondered why I wasn't in with them.  After all, the Peace Corps needs all the engineers it can get, since very few people with such a high potential income generating degree volunteer to go overseas working for $150 a month, plus travel expenses.

I made some connections.  I found out a bit about what they were doing, and sort of wished that I had taken that direction.  But once you are in a program, heading in a certain direction, it is difficult to make a change.  Unless you cheat.

At the end of my first full year I was in Kathmandu and spent some time talking to Ed, a fellow PCV who was working on a manual for designing downhill drinking water supply systems for delivering water from springs to distant villages in pipes to avoid contamination.  The old manual was very old, and needed updating, and he had taken it upon himself to do so.

He easily convinced me to help by just showing me some of the chapters of his book.  Ed was a good engineer, but a terrible writer.  I had taken classes in water systems design, so I knew the basics of what he was doing, but I found it very difficult to understand his ideas.  I knew that I could help him to improve his manual, even though it wasn't in my job description.  In fact, staying in Kathmandu wasn't in my job description.  So I was careful not to be seen by my manager.

Chastise 1996 Rob all you want, but he can't hear you.  Or me.  I wish that I had tried to do this in a more appropriate manner, but I'm not sure if it would have worked.

As it was, I helped Ed for about three months at the beginning of the year.  I was discovered when my manager showed up at my district center (my official posting) with a case of beer to help me celebrate my birthday.  I understand that the PCVs in the area had a good party.  Not my proudest moment.   Ambika Joshee, if you are reading this, please accept my most humble apologies.

Though I was not doing what I was supposed to be doing, I was doing something that I became very good at: editing a tech manual.  I was putting in full days in front of a computer and consulting with Ed, trying to make the ideas and procedures in his head comprehensible.  Sometimes I could figure it out from the context, but at first I had to have him explain in person before I understood well enough to pass the idea on to another.

After a few weeks of working a funny thing happened, though it didn't seem funny at the time.  I opened up the first chapter I had worked on to reference something and was shocked at what I found. Somehow the original version had been saved, rather than the complete edit I had worked on!  I took it to Ed, and we did some digging into the files.  We eventually figured out that no work had been lost.  The original was still there, and the version I saw was my final edit.  But in the intervening weeks of working with Ed, both of us had improved so much that our original writing was unrecognizable.  Ed's current output was on a par with what I was originally doing, and my current standards were so high that my original work looked incomplete.

It was the first time that I remember being seriously impressed with my own improvement.  Our dedication to the project and honest feedback had taken both of us to higher levels of performance.  It was hard work, but I was having fun, and producing something that I could see being more useful than any of the teacher trainings that I had not yet organized or participated in.

That's when Ambika came back from my birthday party.  I pleaded my case, Ed and his manager both asked to have me reassigned, and I went back to my post.  I simply was not up to openly defying my manager, especially after doing it in such a sneaky way.  He had a point, that I was not doing the job I was supposed to be doing.

It is so hard to write this without blaming Ambika.  Looking back, I am sure that if I had played my cards differently I might have been able to work with Ed, maybe while marginally participating in some education objective.  But I had made him look like a fool, and made his job harder, as well as doing work that simply couldn't be accounted for in my file.  The only way to make it right was to go do the job I signed up for.

I later heard that when I left Ed was really brought down.  He had only three months left, and that was after extending his service six months.  He finished the manual, but it was never really finalized, and as far as I know never published.  It was some of my best work, and one of my most ignominious failures.

Time to play "What if...?"  Where would I be now if I had made that project work?  I don't play this game very often, as it tends to sow regrets.  But it can also provide a crop of lessons, so I will attempt this crop, just this once.

December, 1995, I talk to my supervisor, Ambika, and convince him that I need to change jobs.  I work full time with Ed to produce a water supply manual for use in Nepal.  We successfully complete the writing just as Ed leaves the country, and I usher the new manual through publication, dissemination and training from June through December.  I am having such a good time with it that I extend my service for six months (after a break in Thailand, of course) to produce a revised edition.  This is based on feedback from Nepali and Peace Corps engineers using the manual, and my own observations after visiting projects in different parts of the country.

I mail Ed a copy of the revised version, to follow up the first that he took a year previously.

When I COS (Close Of Service) I still visit Andy in Korea, and have a great time, but the prospect of finding work as a tech writer/editor in the Land of Plenty is too strong to resist.  I return to America and get a job at (an engineering textbook publisher?  a tech firm?) earning good money while getting better and better at doing what I do: writing.

Would I take that path if I could choose it now?  Of course not.  Sure it would be nice to have a nice house and job in The States.  I'm sure I would have still met interesting people, as they can be found anywhere.  I probably would have been happy, as well.  I might have met someone who was as perfect for me as Horyon, and I might have had children as amazing as Maxine and Quinten.  But I think part of me would not have been satisfied staying in America after experiencing Nepal for two years.  I would always have been hungry for something more, something different.

Or worse, I would have learned to ignore that hunger.

On Moving to Korea

Today (March 24^th) I spent about an hour and 40 minutes talking with my new coworker, John Bocskay.  He is doing research for a book about the experience of Americans who move to Korea, and asked some very insightful questions.  It occurred to me later that it would be worth my while to sit down with the same questions and compose some slightly more thought-out answers. A friend also been recommended that I should set goal lengths for my posts (Thanks, Kendra!). This time I tried for 1,000 words (Total=1,006. Feel free to ignore your choice of six words.)  The Roblog is not usually this goal-oriented (or obsessive compulsive), but I am trying to be more so (goal-oriented). As always, your comments are appreciated. Here we go!

I am an American living in Korea.*  It doesn't seem strange to me, because most of the people I work with, and go to church with, and hang out with** are also from other countries.  My friends and family back in The States haven't asked about this decision for a long time. I assume this is because I moved so long ago that they either know, have forgotten, or just assume that I've always been here. The truth is, that like any other object in a place, there is a story that put me in mine.

I do not come from a family of travelers. My parents and grandparents are all from the Midwest: Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma. You have to go back to my great-great-aunt Maxie, my Maxine's namesake's namesake to find a traveller. Grandma Euler took me to visit her when I was very young, probably not more than five years old. I only remember Aunt Maxie as a thin, frail woman, older than anyone I had ever seen, with wispy, snow-white hair and soft, liver-spotted hands, the bones clearly outlined. We would feed her ice cream because Grandma said it was her favorite. I remember her smiling a toothless yet cheerful grin, but not saying anything that I could understand. My generation has spread out a little, but I'm the only one who has ended up living in a foreign country.

It took me a long time to make the connection between the ancient woman in the nursing home and the young woman who lived in China back in the days when it took weeks to get there, and there was no Lonely Planet.*** By the mid 1990s going abroad was a matter of applying for a passport, getting a visa, and going. This idea had crossed my mind once or twice, but it hadn't really left tracks until the fall of 1992.

[I probably didn't make that connection because that woman was not my great-great-Aunt Maxie, she was my great-grandma, Becky Stewart.  Thanks Erin Sack, Bob Euler and Becky Duncan!]

As I look back from this vantage point, two days short of being 45 years old, the Rob Sack of 1992 seems like a different person. I remember him, I was him, but he and I are not the same.

He was going to graduate in the spring of 1993 with a degree in civil engineering that he thought he was incapable of using, but had pretty much paid for by virtue of being good at taking multiple choice tests (the SAT and PSAT). He didn't know what he wanted to do, and was not trying very hard to figure it out. But he was starting to realize that he was very fortunate to have been born where and when he was. Maybe it was the “Women in World Religions” class.**** Maybe it was just being on a college campus where people talked about such a wide variety of topics. Our home town, Leavenworth, was somewhat homogeneous, but Fort Leavenworth brought in a few people from around the country and world. Our college town, Lawrence, had an even larger and broader international flavor, with many students from all over the world. Maybe it seemed logical to experience international directly? Whatever the process of his thinking, he decided that it was a good idea to pass on some of those blessings and find out more about the world.

When you think of helping people who are less fortunate, and getting out to see the world, the Peace Corps should come to mind. It came to his, and he latched on to it.

Of course, I knew nothing. Absolutely nothing. Twenty-three year old me had tasted variety for the previous five years, and thought that it was time to plunge into some seriously new experiences. He was right, but for the wrong reasons. After all, a broken clock is right twice a day.

And so he filled in application for the toughest job you'll ever love. After that the story gets boring. But then it gets exciting and excruciating and exhilarating and way over 1000 words.

To be continued.

* The name of my home country is The United States of America, and I find it somewhat annoying that citizens of the USA are referred to as "Americans".  Other denizens of this fine continent must take exception to this.  However, I am loathe to type "U.S. Citizen" instead of "American", because I don't want anyone to stumble on this site and believe that it is a dot-gov.  It's even more awkward to refer to us as "Unitidians" or "Stations", and "Usians" sounds too much like a cross between Russians and Asians.  So I am an American, by virtue of linguistic momentum.

In a similar vein, I am now living in the Republic of Korea, a.k.a. South Korea, not to be confused with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a.k.a. North Korea.  (Confused?  Just remember this handy rule: the longer the name of a country, the more repressive the government, but only when “Korea” is in the name.)  So when I refer to "Korea", it means the not crazy one.

** I hang out on average twice a year.  In a good year.

*** I don't have much on great-great-Aunt Maxie right now. Perhaps later.

**** He would have been uncomfortable in any conversation involving female genitalia, but adding the word “mutilation” took uncomfortable to new levels.

Newish Job

This month marks my return to Kyungsung University, where I worked for four years (2003-2006).  Things, myself included, have changed enough that it feels like a completely new job.  This is mostly a good thing.

The most significant change is that class sizes are now limited to 15 students.  I believe that the previous limit was 50, though it may have been 60.  The difference this makes in teaching is similar to the difference between carrying 15 and 50 marbles with nothing but your bare hands.  I now have six classes, with a total of about 80 students.  My first semester at KIT I had a total of 350 students.  Last fall set my record for fewest students at 136 enrolled, and just under 100 regularly attending.  Even then, I did not learn many names.

I am now teaching only 2nd year students, whereas at my previous job I was teaching 1st and 2nd year students.  In keeping with the marble theme, 1st year students are more slippery marbles.  They have just finished high school in Korea, which is a challenge the likes of which most of my readers never have faced, and they are ready to avoid work of any sort.  To them, college is like the steps you take after crossing the finish line in a race, but before you settle down and put your nose to the grindstone at work.  Second year students are more like jagged marbles, easier to hold on to, but sometimes more painful.  They will work if they have to, but are less likely to put up with what they perceive as bad teaching.  The more English teachers they've had, the pickier they get.  I find it especially bad if they have had a very lazy teacher who demanded nothing and let them leave early all the time.

In general, English classes at Kyungsung University (which I will from here on out refer to as KSU, which will no doubt be confusing to my friends who fans of Kansas State University, and thus have difficulty processing change) are better optimized to actually teach students.  Though both KIT and KSU English Conversation Classes are two hours per week, at KIT the classes are all in blocks, so they meet one time during the week for two hours.  KSU has what I think of as a more traditional structure, meeting on two different days for one hour each day.  This offers two main advantages: less time to forget what was learned between lessons, and a lower likelihood of reaching English fatigue during class.

If you have not learned a foreign language, it will be difficult to understand foreign language fatigue.  Speaking and listening to a foreign language takes a lot of mental processing power, the same way walking is harder with small children fastened to your wrists and ankles.  Some people can talk in their native language for hours with no problem, while some of us get tired of it relatively quickly.  In a foreign language, that threshold comes much sooner.  The lower your level, the sooner you burn out.  With apologies to my bilingual friends, this is my empathy attempting to better understand my students:

Imagine that you are in class, listening to trying to listen to the teacher talking, while half a dozen other conversations are playing in one earbud in your left ear.  The teacher is from a country that claims to speak English, and considers your language to be a perversion of the Queen's English.  From time to time the teacher uses words which you simply do not recognize, and every word sounds different from what you are used to, sometimes subtly, sometimes unrecognizably.  In addition, this person has a bizarre sense of humor, making jokes that you do not even recognize as such.  If that doesn't sound so bad, it is because you are not imagining well enough.

So I like the small classes split into two different days, though I do have one class that only meets for two consecutive hours on Friday.

I also like my schedule in general.  It is not vastly superior to the schedules I've had at KIT, but there is one significant difference: no night classes.  I am home every evening to enjoy the company of my children.  I have a total of eight hours of gap in my schedule, but it's in only three chunks.  Some of my coworkers have that much in six or seven chunks: an hour here, an hour there.  I have two three-hour breaks and one two-hour break.  Even two hours is long enough to walk home and have an hour to waste time on Facebook do the dishes.

The biggest positive right off the bat for me is how close KSU is to our home.  I can walk to our office building in 20 minutes without pushing too hard.  Granted, I have to leave home 35-40 minutes before class to either avoid the elevator crush or recover from hiking up the hill plus ten flights of stairs.  Not wimpy apartment flights, but big, extra half-floor flights.

There is room for one of these on every floor!
(Yeah, that's the 7 1/2 floor from "Being John Malkovich")

I don't think there's anything as cool as an extra floor between the regular floors, but between the 5th and 15th floor there is a gym membership worth of free exercise.  All I have to do is come early enough to not be sweaty and panting when I get to class.

So not only am I exercising more, I am hardly ever riding the subway.  I work two days a week at Apple Tree Elementary, where Maxine goes to school.  It's about a 40 minute walk from my office, through pleasant neighborhoods with shops and places to eat, as well as the U.N. Memorial Park.

Of course, all of these walks are easily converted into much shorter bike rides, which I want to do.  That will free me up to take longer rides during the week, maybe even during those long breaks.  I am also hoping to bike with Maxine to and from Apple Tree three times per week.  She got a new, grown-up sized bike for a late Christmas present.

I like the old school lines and colors.

It's a bit heavy, but she manages.

I think the basket was what sold her on it.

My biggest problem will be sweat and stink as the weather gets warmer.

Wait, my sweat and stink won't be my problem, they will be my students' problem!  I'll just offer them extra credit to not notice my stench.

A few other details make KSU a better fit for me:  though both jobs have shared office space, at KSU I share with only about 12 instead of all 25, and the office is on the same floor of the same building as all of my classes!  At KIT I would go days, sometimes weeks, without visiting the office because it was far from my classes.  Now I have to be careful to be productive during my office time, because there are a bunch of fun guys in there most of the time.

I like my new coworkers, I miss my old coworkers.  In that respect, this change is a wash.  But almost everything else is an improvement.  It's taking me a while to get into it, and I am considering a big shift in my teaching style, hence my lack of posting recently.  It may get worse before it gets better.

Oh, and one more huge advantage: at the bottom of the hill is a movie theater, and I have time to go!  I saw two movies last week ("Imitation Game" and "Welcome to Yesterday".  Science/History and Time Travel/Teen), and plan to go once a week this semester.  It will not necessarily improve my writing, but it will be fun!  $6 for a morning ticket, which I can easily swing on Wednesdays and Fridays, sometimes even on Mondays!  If I can just resist the popcorn and cola, I think I will be all right!

I am excited about 2015!  Sure, my jacket doesn't talk and dry itself, and there are no hoverboards or flying cars, but I am already enjoying my job, my parents are coming to visit in November, and I get to resume my movie habit!  If I can just get my kids to be nice to each other, this will be an awesome year!